"I have a five-year-old who wants to go to school. I am
dedicated wholeheartedly to unschooling. I'm confused about what
he is seeking and what he has in mind when he says 'school' and
ask him questions to try to understand. My hunch is feeling grown
up, being part of something, perhaps thinking he will learn things
there that he can't learn in life. My concern is that he is
receiving the message that he is 'not allowed' to go to school
because I stumble all over my words when I try to explain what I
want for our family and for him. What would you recommend I say to
him? What have you said to others in this situation?"

A.

At age 5, an unschooling child has very little idea about what
school is all about. I doubt that he thinks he will learn things
there that he can't learn elsewhere, unless someone has told him
that. It's far more likely that he is simply curious about school
in the same way that he is curious about anything else new to him.
If his curiosity has always been respected, then curiosity about
school is very natural, since it is something he has heard about
so often from relatives, friends, neighbors, books, etc.

The challenge for a parent dedicated to unschooling
is to support that curiosity without putting the child into a
harmful situation. Because a young child has a built-in curiosity
about everything, it's inevitable that he will be curious about
many things that are too dangerous to allow him to experience
directly - things like fire, wild animals, poisonous chemicals, a
busy street, and so on. Those things are also "not
allowed" and for good reasons. When a child wants to explore
something we know to be potentially harmful, we answer his
questions as fully as possible, and at the same time we protect
him from the danger. As unschoolers, we know that the school
environment has many harmful elements; given that awareness, it is
our responsibility to protect our child from it.

The critical step
is to determine clearly
what the child means
by "school".

The critical step when a child announces he wants
to go to school is to determine very specifically and clearly what
the child means by "school": what it is that he thinks
he would enjoy there, or what need it might fulfill - and then
meet that need as well as possible outside of school. When this
topic was discussed in Growing Without Schooling some years
ago, the general consensus was that the parents should ask the
child to be as specific as possible about why they want to
go to school. The parents were amazed at some of the answers. One
boy wanted only to ride the school bus (which his parents then
arranged for him); one girl wanted to have something to say when
strangers asked her what school she was going to (they created a
name and put a sign on the front of their house - problem solved);
another girl just wanted to play in the playground (which they
then did on weekends) and so on. Had these parents not asked this
critical question, and simply put their child in school, one need
may have been met, but at great expense to the child and to the
parent-child bond.

In each of those situations, the solution was to identify a very
specific need, and to find a creative way of meeting that need
outside of school. If the child's need is more general than the
examples given - if it is simply an understandable curiosity about
what school is like, then the parent can show him the inside of a
school and let him see what happens there. An unschooling child
who is used to having the free use of his time can't help but
notice that the seated children look constrained and unhappy.

It can be easy to forget to ask children this critical question
and to assume that they somehow have all the information necessary
to make such an important decision. It's also easy to assume that
they are using the term "school" in the same way that we
use it based on all of our memories of school attendance. As in
any discussion, it's essential that all terms are clearly defined.
The simple reality is that a young child does not have the
information or experience necessary to understand the full meaning
of the word "school". The most helpful thing we can do
when confronted with this type of request is to learn exactly what
it is that the child has in mind, and then do our best to meet
that need in an alternative and safe way. After all, identifying a
child's need and meeting it with respect and compassion is at the
heart of attachment parenting.